


The Introduction

by MegDee (MissMadeleine)



Category: Bonanza
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMadeleine/pseuds/MegDee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam may have met his romantic match but he'll have to work for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Introduction

THE INTRODUCTION

Adam had noticed her in church a few weeks before. Actually, he noticed her voice and had turned around to find the person who produced such clear, true notes. He located the source of the music the first time he turned around and looked behind two more times after that: to confirm she really was that pretty and then again just to look at her. But these were mere glances.

The following Sunday, he lingered outside the church before services began so he could watch her come in and found she was more beautiful in near proximity and under steady gaze than his fleeting glances behind him a week before had suggested. She was slender and petite, almost fragile looking, but it was her movement that caught his attention. Her movements were fluid and graceful; she glided more than walked. He watched as she took a seat near the back and he watched as she removed her gloves revealing a gold band on the fourth finger of her left hand and he felt his heart sink down inside him. Hard jealousy rose in him as he considered the man fortunate enough to have such a glorious creature for a wife though on that day she appeared to be unaccompanied. Whoever the man was, he had wealth; Adam was worldly enough to recognize that her dress, a heavy silk of pale sage green, was bespoke and tailored, and not ready-made and certainly not homemade. 

A scheduled trip to Sacramento was a welcome break so he wouldn’t have to hear her or see her at church or think about her the rest of the time. He could use his time away to forget her and his plan worked well. He returned a few weeks later and his father, feeling under the weather, requested that Adam go in his place to meet and welcome the newest member of the church guild, a widow named Mrs. Brownlee, recently arrived to Virginia City.

Adele Brownlee’s late husband came from a prominent family from Back East. She came from a prominent family Back East. She was the singular product of her father’s later-in-life marriage to a pretty Parisienne who died when she was still a small child. Her father’s reputation had suffered as a result of that marriage and when he died, she was fourteen and attending school in France. Her half brother, product of her father’s first and socially sanctioned marriage, twenty-four years her senior and now her guardian, brought her back to Massachusetts and placed her in school in Boston until she was sixteen.

Adam later asked her if her marriage to Howard was arranged. “Arranged?” she repeated thoughtfully, considering, “No, it was strongly encouraged.”

Howard was a nice man, only ten years older than herself in years but so much younger in other ways. She gathered from pieces of conversations she overheard that Howard’s family held little faith in his ability to manage the family business and she found it reassuring that she was not alone in her assessment of her husband’s business acumen. The family kept him busy with the San Francisco branch of its shipping business where, she suspected, they thought he could have the least impact on the overall fortune of the enterprise. She thought he might have a sense of his reputation but she was never sure. His family loved him though; he was his mother’s prince and while Adele liked her mother-in-law well enough, she was relieved to be removed from the family dynamics that allowed such negligence and folly in a grown man.

When at home, Howard would follow her around the house like a puppy, room to room, always demanding her attention in the most persistent ways: wanting to know what she was reading by suddenly grabbing the book out of her hand, taking over her letter-writing, reading her journal even, and critiquing her sewing skills, usually unfairly. He seemed entirely unable to sit still and rare were the evenings when he could tolerate more than five minutes of silence between them. She found it exhausting to be alone in his presence and when she would lose patience and tell him to go entertain himself, he would sulk, one time even curling up in a ball on the floor under a table. She was so taken aback, so horrified, she didn’t know what to make of it so she didn’t even try.

She had looked forward to married life, to intimacy and to children, but with Howard there was little of the former and none of the latter. Howard would crawl on top of her, enter her, and wiggle his hips. She was fairly certain that marital intimacy was something much more pleasurable based the passion of the poetry she read, the love affairs she knew about, and based on conversations she’d had with her school friends back in France. The French were so much more open about such things. A couple of the older girls at school had told Adele and her friends about fellatio and later brought cucumbers for demonstration and practice. It was from them she learned about physical desire and what really happened between lovers. One girl brought books to school she’d snuck out of her father’s library that featured drawings of exactly what lovers did. The pictures were titillating of course. They were also very informative.

Adele appreciated that Howard had not had the benefit of her education so tried to take the role of educator but this fell flat. She tried several times to please him with what she had learned with cucumbers but it made him uncomfortable and he squirmed away. He only liked the position where he was on top but he would always allow his full weight to fall on her and she would need to push him up and away in order to take a breath and he would pout like a small child to have his pleasure interrupted by her will to survive.

She tried to talk to Howard about their intimacy but he told her it was unseemly for her to discuss such things. One night, she asked him if she had pleased him and he scolded her, telling her, “Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself.” Those words echoed within her for the longest time. Was this how history’s great lovers approached lovemaking? She didn’t know, of course, but she didn’t think so. She suspected that making love was about pleasing one’s lover and not one’s self but she had no one to ask. Left unsatisfied for so very many nights, Adele’s sexual desires withered and died and she came to accept Howard’s infrequent demands with nothing more than an allegiance to wifely duty.

With neither husband nor wife much interested in intimacy, the opportunities for children were greatly reduced. This was a shame, for a child would have given them something in common; Adele and Howard shared no other interests. Adele once took paper and pencil, trying to approach her question in a logical, reasonable fashion and concluded they had nothing in common; they didn’t even like the same colors. But Howard wasn’t mean or malicious. He wasn’t violent or dishonest or cruel and for this she was grateful. She resigned herself to her marriage and tried to convince herself she loved Howard and sometimes she succeeded.

Howard came home from work one Friday and by Monday had fallen ill with cholera, which of course he shared with her. He did not survive and she was left with both his share in the Brownlee family fortune and her own trust arranged by her father.

She remained in San Francisco for the obligatory period of mourning. Neither her half brother nor her half sister had asked her to return to Massachusetts and she knew Howard’s family, while mourning their dear son, had no particular interest in taking her in, either. She was free to live her own life and had the financial means to do so. And she was resigned, perhaps even determined, to never marry again. She had no desire to become ensnared in another relationship where she would be subjugated to the whims and childish needs of another man-child.

She and Howard had once taken a holiday in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and she loved the smell of pine, the wildflowers, and the pristine air and waters. So, when her mourning ended, she engaged the services of a reputable land agent and purchased a small but fine home in the small but growing town of Virginia City, not far from Lake Tahoe. She moved there as soon as the winter snows melted off.

And so, per his agreement with and his duty to his father, Adam went in his father’s place to the church guild reception to welcome The Widow Brownlee. Mrs. Wilson, introducing them, said to Mrs. Brownlee in a stage whisper, “Adam is one of our most eligible bachelors” and Adele smiled politely at Mrs. Wilson, then raised an eyebrow as soon as the older woman turned and walked away. Then, turning back to Adam, she offered her congratulations. Adam winced his response. 

He asked what brought her to Virginia City and her answer was polite but perfunctory enough that he held up a hand and stopped her, asking if she’d answered that question a few times already. She smiled at him, relieved, and he noted her eyes were blue-gray, taking more than their fair share of space in a face of ivory skin, full red lips, contrasted by dark hair, neatly dressed. He asked her what her plans were and she told him about the gardens she was planning and planting. He listened as she explained that she had never planted a flower garden before or a vegetable garden either. He was mildly intrigued, perhaps even charmed, by her genuine excitement at the prospect.

He asked her if she planned on joining the church choir and she said, no, looking at him, perplexed. He explained that he had heard her sing in church, thought she had a lovely voice, and she blushed a deep scarlet and apologized for singing too loudly. He assured she did not sing louder than the other voices, just better than the other voices and told her again that she had a pretty singing voice. She deftly changed the subject and looked genuinely relieved when Mr. And Mrs. Hobson approached soon after to make her acquaintance.

The old Jensen house sat on the edges of the city on a nice street with other nice houses and Adam made a point to come to town and ride past the street every day till he saw her out in the side yard where the Jensens had kept their vegetable garden. The property had been unoccupied for a full year and, though the house was in good repair, the yard had gone to seed and needed much work. She was putting a brand new hoe to the soil and doing a fair job of it. She wore a plain dress of blue calico and a poke bonnet to shield her fair skin from the sunshine. She didn’t notice when he rode up and stopped. She didn’t notice when he dismounted and walked over to her fence and she was startled when he called out a greeting and an offer to help. She hesitated to accept, wanting to be as independent as possible, but allowed him to help knowing he was only being friendly and she was in fact getting tired and sore.

Adam hoed the small space deeply and thoroughly in no time at all and then helped her plant and water the seeds she had purchased the week before. Adam found her rapt attention to the task interesting. Planting a vegetable garden every spring was part and parcel of his existence, like hunting game or chopping wood for the winter, and not an endeavor from which he derived much joy. She however was joyful. He accepted her offer of refreshment but as she led him to the front door he suggested they enter through the back door to the house since they both had dirty boots. She said they couldn’t use the back door because there was a snake in the backyard. He laughed.

“What kind of snake?” He asked as he changed direction and headed towards the back yard and she followed him there.

“I don’t know, a slithery one,” she said and laughed.

It was gopher snake and Adam caught it and held it up for her, explaining that this was a snake a person wants in a garden. He told her he would show her how a rattlesnake looks different. He let the snake go in the back yard and they entered through the kitchen where she offered him coffee, tea, wine, or brandy. He asked for coffee. She led him into the front parlor and told him to make himself at home. The front parlor was light and sunny and had an entire wall lined with crowded bookshelves. As she turned to the kitchen to prepare the coffee, he asked if the books belonged to her late husband.

“Howard?” She almost laughed out loud but she really didn’t mean any disrespect towards Howard, “I’m afraid Howard wasn’t much of a reader. Do you enjoy books?” Adam’s heart rate quickened and he nodded, looking at the books, her books. She told him, “Please, feel free to borrow anything you like. I believe ideas are best when they are shared” and then left him alone with her beloved books while she prepared coffee.

When she returned with the coffee tray, he was standing by the bookshelf, a small, well worn book of poems of William Blake sitting open and fitting neatly in his large hand. He read aloud the name inscribed on the inside cover in a juvenile hand.

“Amelie Adams?”

“Amelie Adele Adams,” she told him. She went by her middle name of Adele. Only her French friends and family called her Amelie.

“Your maiden name is Adams?” 

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders and sat down in the green chair. Adam sat on the settee.

So began an exchange of books between them. From him, she borrowed Shakespeare plays and Dickens while he enjoyed her collection of poets: Emily Bronte, Baudelaire, Whitman, even Poe, and, of course, Shelley. They both loved the works of Thoreau and discussed his ideas passionately. He donated flower and vegetable seeds to her gardening efforts. And he sketched a picture of a rattlesnake that she kept tacked to the wall near the back door. 

Ben eventually met her at a church meeting and mentioned it at dinner, now understanding that his son’s interest in befriending the widow probably went deeper than mere neighborliness, and he was curious about the extent of that interest.

“She seems a very lovely lady, indeed,” Ben offered.

Adam gave no response, not outwardly anyway. Hoss and Joe, however, were immediately interested by their father’s compliment of the newest widow lady in town.

“Hey, Pa, is she pretty?” asked Joe.

“Pretty? No. No, I would say her looks run more to the side of beautiful,” he answered, not taking his eyes off his oldest son. Hoss and Joe didn’t notice that, however, and made some noises about their father taking an interest in this woman.

“Bah!” Ben said, smiling, “Much too young for me - why, she couldn’t be a day over 25!”

“She’s 24,” Adam said blandly. He had accurately calculated her age based on her answers regarding her age when she married, when she was widowed, and how long she waited before leaving San Francisco.

Ben suggested they invite her to dinner at The Ponderosa but Adam said she would not likely accept. After some silence, Adam suggested she might attend a small party at the ranch and thus such an event was planned and Adam made sure it was he who brought her in from town for he wanted to be the first to show her the scenery.

Sitting beside him in the buggy, she kept looking all around, up and down and towards the distances. She let the wind caress her face and closed her eyes to better experience it. He told her about the different trees, what their names were, what their wood was used for. He pointed out the different birds they heard and saw and told her how the land is best seen from horseback and suggested they take a ride someday. She was silent. He guessed perhaps she didn’t ride.

“Adele, I can borrow a side-saddle if you like.”

“I’ve never been on a horse. Ever.”

“I’d be happy to teach you,” he offered.

She looked off in the distance. “Women Out West ride astride, don’t they?”

“Some do, yes.”

“Side saddle always seemed to me a precarious way to ride on the back of such a powerful animal,” she said. “If I learn to ride, I should like to learn to ride astride.”

Adam simply smiled. When she mentioned she had never even led a team, he handed her the reins and she took them. Later, when he mentioned the riding lessons again because he wanted to confirm she really would go riding with him, she said she would need to purchase some breeches and he teased her by asking her what the ladies in town would think. She looked at him and, quite serious, stated, “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

She clarified her statement stating that, while she would be careful not to invite scandal, there is little she can do to prevent rumor. These were lessons she learned from her father who she considered a wise man. “People are going to talk, no matter what one does” and Adam admired her insight and integrity. 

Not that she needed to worry. The people of the small city generally thought very well of her; she was kind, polite, and modest. Although as they came to know her better they also found her to be singular and a bit eccentric in her independent views. Rather, they agreed, a good match for Adam, whom they had long ago come to regard much the same way.

It was a lovely dinner party with Adele being one of six guests, plenty enough to take the attention away from her and that pleased her, made her feel more relaxed. She was good at side conversations and her posture and manners were impeccable, a fact that did not go unnoticed by either Adam or his father. The conversation then took a natural turn to the Chinese ways of the dinner’s cook but then started to take on a mocking tone, Adele felt she must speak up:

“The Encyclopedia Britannica tells us it was the seventeenth century British physician William Harvey who discovered the heart is a muscle that continually receives and pumps throughout the human body; The Chinese have known this for eight thousand years.”

She did not know – nor would she have cared – that Hop Sing had heard everything from within the kitchen. Nor did she know that both her cultural knowledge and her advocacy for the marginalized had just added to Adam’s already growing esteem for her.

As the party wound down, Adam brought out his guitar, hoping to entice Adele to sing but she wasn’t volunteering and he didn’t know how hard to push. When he asked if she knew “Scarborough Fair,” she took this as an invitation to join him but as the notes began, she found herself singing alone and Adam, head bent low over the guitar, was grinning up at her. Only when she cast a subtle cold eye at him did he join and sing a baritone harmony to her soprano melody. When the song ended, the guests, almost in unison, told Adele how much they enjoyed her singing and she was embarrassed. She also felt betrayed and told Adam as much later when they were alone on the ride back to town. And he laughed softly, apologized, and told her he wanted people to hear her lovely voice.

His actions confused her. Howard betrayed her when he promised her outings but reneged and failed to mention the cancellation of plans, then acted put out when she was disappointed with him. Howard betrayed her in public by ignoring her or silencing her. But no man, and certainly not Howard, had ever betrayed her in order that she might shine for just a moment and receive praise. It was most perplexing.

The day Adam came to bring her to The Ponderosa for a riding lesson, she showed him every seedling in her vegetable garden and every flower bud readying to blossom. The overgrown yard now looked like the well-tended garden that it was; she had made impressive progress. “I know I sound like a child at Christmas,” she said, “but how lovely to have a hand in creating something so wonderful as a flower or a food to eat.” Adele’s enthusiasm reminded Adam of how parents talk of seeing the world anew through their children’s eyes as it made him appreciate a little better what he saw before him every day.

He silently gave her the reins and she drove the buggy to The Ponderosa without any help. As he readied the horses for riding and then talked with his father, Hoss gave her a tour of the barn and the animals he so loved and she decided she would ask Adam if she should keep a few chickens for the eggs. She had not asked for his advice up to that point and feared he might feel flattered, needed even, but she really had no one else to ask.

She rode fair as long as the pace was slow and the trail even. When they got to the spot he had chosen, Adam went to help her down and caught a glimpse of the tight breeches beneath her petticoats. As she lowered herself against his support, she saw his eyes and before she had a chance to react against it - had she wanted to react against it - he was kissing her with a passion she could tell he was restraining and she appreciated that. Neither one said anything and he led her by the hand to the a rise that overlooked the great lake and there they sat side by side in silence for the longest time. It was a comfortable silence; both of them were fond of silence and in that they knew they were unique.

After supper at the house, she asked Adam to take her around the barn and explain every one of the evening chores to her. She was fascinated with the milking of the cows and asked Adam if she didn’t remind him of Marie Antoinette playing at her Petit Trianon. No, he said, he didn’t know either her or Marie Antoinette well enough to draw a comparison. Like the tragic French queen, Adele had never had chores, not real ones, not ones that mattered for actual survival. On the way home that night, Adele asked Adam about his childhood that he answered with short, concise replies devoid of emotional content. She asked him gentle and understanding questions about that and he answered, allowing her a small glimpse into his heart. When he kissed her good night, inside the door of her home, he held her head with one hand while his other arm pulled her core tight against his own and she felt his hardness all the way through her breeches, petticoats and skirt. It made her light-headed and quickened her breath. 

She had to trust him to be a gentleman because she now knew how vulnerable she had become to his attention. She did not like feeling vulnerable.


End file.
